05:57 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Unknown Location
The Spirit of Fire, a Phoenix-Class Colony ship refitted into a support ship, sailed silently through the vast reaches of empty space. Battered and old, the former colony ship saw through many actions throughout its entire service history. From ferrying colonists to newly discovered worlds, to suppressing insurrectionist activities, to providing support to orbital and ground force in the war against the Covenant. The battle at the mysterious artificial alien world took a toll on the ship as thousands of brave soldiers sacrificed their lives to halt the Covenant from gaining access to accelerate their genocidal war on humanity, and the using the slipspace drive - their only way of making back home - to destroy the alien world, preventing the Covenant from gaining valuable asset. However, it prevented her from making a jump to human space and forced her into a long painful journey back home.
This was few years ago, the ship's crew were already waking up from their cryp-sleep and are now attending to their respective duties thanks to Serina waking them up. Eventually the ship was filled with marines patrolling the ship's hall, engineers and technicians conducting maintenance operations on various machineries aboard the ship, and sailors making sure the ship was operating at full capacity. Many were still wondering why they were awaken from their slumber, but only handful currently knew the reason why.
"Hello captain, I take it you slept well?" Serina asked her CO.
Cutter twisted his neck to release the muscle there. "Feeling a little stiff from the sleep." He said as he entered the lift and pushed the down button that lead him to the observation deck.
"Serina, give me a sitrep on the ship."
"Most of the damage we received from the last battle has been fully repaired; The port superstructure has been rebuilt along with the 5 herons docked with it. All weapon system has been repaired and functional, though the MAC gun is suffering some system issue. All surviving crew are accounted for and all woken. Should I go over the inventory?"
"Later Serina, for now let's look at our current situation."
The lift quietly descended down to the observation deck as it pass by numerous decks. It continued on for several seconds until it came to the bottom superstructure of the ship, where the former observation deck was converted into a personal laboratory.
"Serina, how long have we been sleeping?" Cutter asked Serina, the ship's on-board smart AI.
"Approximately 5 years, 1 month, 28 days, 4 hours, and 34 minutes since we went to cryo-sleep, captain." Serina reported.
"Five years." Cutter muttered, a sense of deja vu flowing through him.
Cutter soon arrived at the makeshift laboratory and entered to see Anders busy working with the starmap.
"Professor, I take it that you enjoyed your beauty sleep?" Serina asked teasingly
"Yes, I had a good sleep, and I mean good in that I woke with my skin raw and the bronchial surfactant I swallowed taste like crap." Anders sarcastically replied without getting distracted from her work.
"Let's cut the chat ladies. Professor, it's good to see you, do you have any idea where we are?" Cutter asked.
Anders then brought up a holographic images from the holo-table projected a Earth-like planet they were orbiting above; Cutter saw that the majority of the world was similar to Earth - where majority of the planet was covered in water with the remaining space occupied by land - though compared to Earth there were only about 3 major continents, with the largest landmass where the Spirit was orbiting above.
"Hmmm… I don't know where we honestly." Anders muttered. "I checked the ship records for anything that happened few hours ago that took us here… But all I'm getting is that one moment the ship was on its course, and the next thing, we're at this place." Anders finished with a baffled tone. "Wherever we're, its at least at a habitable world, scanners have the world having the same breathable atmosphere as Earth.
Cutter silently looked at the holographic image of the planet, contemplating on his next course of action. While the ship was not near any UNSC space to call for aid, they were very lucky the ship was currently orbiting a perfect habitable world with resources to restock supplies aboard and conducting some minor repairs to the ship. However, they were still stranded without any form of FTL travel. Cutter didn't knew how long they were going to be stuck on this world, but at the same time whatever unknown force sent them to this unknown world there was a chance that could find the source of it, and use it to get back to the UNSC.
"Captain, I ran through a general scan and found out that there are many life signatures inhabiting the world, most of the signature is located on the largest continent of the world." Serine reported. "Not detecting any sign of technological development, but I'm also sensing an unknown type of energy emitting from the surface."
"Unknown energy?" Anders inquired.
"Is it possible this energy might be responsible for bringing us here?" Cutter also asked.
"Can say for sure, but I'll need either direct sample or a closer look at the surface for further analysis." Serena said with her head slightly down while scratching her own chin in contemplation, as multiple different calculation and analysis course through her.
"I'll have Red team and a recon team ready in an hour." Cutter said. "We're going to find out where we are at, what brought us here, and why we're here."
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Also apparentlythe uploaded one gotten some weird formatting